


The Drama King

by compo67



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Drabble, Emotional Hurt, Hurt Dean Winchester, M/M, One Shot, POV Dean Winchester, Post-Break Up, Pre-Series Dean Winchester, Song Lyrics, Stanford Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 02:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6101599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/compo67/pseuds/compo67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean hates the band Everclear with good reason.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Drama King

**Author's Note:**

> "The Drama King" and "Glorious" by Everclear.

Dean has no patience for whiny rock bands complaining about their fathers. 

Which is why, when he was twenty-five, he was pissed to find himself at an Everclear concert. To make things more ridiculous, the concert was being held at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. Nineties wanna be grunge band playing ballads dedicated to absentee fathers in the middle of a god damn zoo? Dean felt sorry for the animals.

John had sent him on a hunt, some stupid spirit shit the old man couldn’t be bothered to attend to himself. Ever the errand boy, Dean’s collection of information, interviews, and instinct lead him to the zoo. And of course, there they were, Everclear, playing their hits for the crowd of Generation Whatever that couldn’t be bothered to sway to the music. Dead-eyed mid-thirties people stood stock still while the band wailed on about some crap. No one seemed to give two shits that nasty domestic beer was being sold at $9 a can. 

Then again, if they called this music, they deserved their swill. 

The lawn was unnervingly soft, damp from spilled beer and other liquids Dean didn’t want to think about. He finished the hunt in record time, but any celebratory events were trampled on by his unfortunate surroundings. 

If he could manage it, he was tempted to swing back towards the Loop and get shit faced in an expensive steak house and see where the night took him from there. Muscling his way through the crowd of zombies he couldn’t stab, it became clearer that with his mood, he should retire to his penthouse suite on Michigan Avenue. He decided to splurge on the digs after being assigned to this newbie crap. Plus, this-morning-Dean had had enough foresight to ask that his minibar be refilled and refreshed while he was out. 

Steak could be delivered to his suite. 

And it would be a few days before John would call to shout about how they had to lay low and how staying at a $900/night suite was not laying low. 

The song onstage changed. For half the set, the crowd managed not to make any movement or sound that would look or sound like excitement. Suddenly, thrown off, Dean covered his ears as the audience cheered. Were they cheering because the set was almost over? Please let that be it. Or maybe one of the lions escaped...

Fuck. 

Dean stepped in a particularly mushy, muddy spot on the lawn. 

“She left him a note, on the dining room table. She finally had the last word, the day that she went away. Impossible to say to him, everything she had to say.”

Oh fuck, no.

“Nothing seems right. I don’t know who I am anymore. Losing the fight, I hate my life. I wish that it was easier to be in love.”

Who gave Everclear the authority to write pathetic, stupid break up songs? As he trudged forward, the band played on, ignoring the scowl on his face. The lyrics were sinking in like his boots were cementing into cheap beer and the leftovers of Chicago rain. 

“She drinks herself to sleep. She gets lost inside the darkness. Losing my mind, nothing seems right. I don’t know who I am anymore. I hate my life. I wish that it was easier to be in love. No more drama. No more pain. I don’t understand why being with you is so god damned hard.” 

Right. The muscles in Dean’s shoulders tightened with every second and every poorly played drumbeat. The lead singer could howl about how much he hated his life, but did he know what Dean just did? Fuck no. No civvie ever did. 

And if poor Art Alexakis hated his life so fucking much, then why didn’t he change it? Why didn’t he just pick up, be a man about it, and admit to himself that wow, maybe he could actually fix his own problems.

Why didn’t everyone benefit from John Winchester A+ Parenting Skills?

Besides, what did normal people know about difficult relationships? No one in the world wished it was easier to be in love than Dean Holy Fuck Winchester. 

He hadn’t understood why he wasn’t allowed to love some gangly, scrawny, stubborn as shit individual since he was four years old, standing on the front lawn of his incinerated house.

Somewhere along the line, his love got screwed up.

It wasn’t right anymore. 

But what it did matter anyway?

Said individual left. And he was going to leave with nothing but a pathetic note left on the kitchen table of whatever motel they were staying at. He thought he could slip off that way; guess again. His little brother didn’t sneak out, intent on leaving forever just like that. 

Dean ran after him.

Because that is what people in love do.

Sam left all the same.

Two weeks later, when the kid called to say he missed Dean, Dean wanted to laugh. It was his first instinct. The cruelest, most despicable instinct he’s ever had crawl up his spine and threaten to spill out of his mouth. It was going to feel good to tell Sam: you made your bed, now lie in it. See what life is like without me? I’m not that easy to leave. I’m nothing like anyone else. 

That was his ointment.

Telling himself that Sam would miss him. Picturing Sam sleeping in the shirt he knew Sam swiped. Lying there in it, hoping that the next text on his phone was from Dean, not Bobby. Listening to Zeppelin in his dorm room and feeling the same aching, bleeding hole in his chest that Dean did.

Dean didn’t laugh. He told Sam to man up, focus on his grades, and quit making Stanford seem like Summer Camp.

And then he hung up. 

It hurt ten times worse when weeks passed by without a word from Sam. No late night phone calls. No random texts. No letters. No smoke signals. No telegrams. Squat. 

Because it was Sam’s call.

Sam’s decision to come back. Rebuild. Start over. If Sam wanted whatever it was they had between them--those midnight touches, afternoon sighs, morning slips of the covers and sheets--then he had to do something.

It wouldn’t be the last time Sam did nothing.

But it was the first.

“I know everything fades away, the world changes every day. When I think about you and what we had, it makes me wanna say, Glorious. You are to me. Glorious. Yes, you are to me.”

The song had changed.

“I was asleep when I was living the dream. I know I was living the dream. I could never believe that you wanted to be with me. I was living the lie when I should’ve been living the dream.” 

Sam. Sam. Sam. Sam. Sam. His name had always been a constant. Somehow it changed. Sam, dinner’s ready. Sam, don’t talk chick crap. Sam, I’m gonna buy you a library one day. Sammy, please, don’t leave.

Don’t leave me.

“I know I never understood how much you mean to me.”

Dean didn’t know if he was listening to his perspective or Sam’s. 

He shrugged his father’s coat over his shoulders, popping the collar. Taxis and skyscrapers provided light beyond the stage, reminders that the rest of Chicago waited in twilight existence. 

Chest tight, Dean moved through, until he feet were on concrete again.

He’d always known he’d lose.

Because Sam was too bright, too smart, too normal to get caught up in the life. Of course, Dean didn’t care about the future. He was too busy trying to hold onto the present. He got involved knowing that he was the one ultimately getting screwed over. 

He just took it a step further hoping Sam would turn back.

Dr. Phil would lose the rest of his hair talking to Dean for ten minutes. Oprah would declare Dean completely out of reach; her magic powers of day time pop psychology were useless on him.

Fuck, Dean hated Everclear.

He sent a message to John--hunt was done. He’d wait for a response. The next assignment. The next errand, job, favor, whatever. 

Back at the suite, Dean raided the mini bar, stole two down pillows, and left a ten dollar tip for the maids. 

That night found him stretched out in the back of the Impala, trying to sleep, Ramble On at full blast through the discman he paid $2 for at a gas station somewhere last week in Kentucky. 

Nothing could ever make him like whiny rock bands.

Not even the truth.

**Author's Note:**

> i've been listening to everclear since i was 14 years old. they are my go to when i'm feeling angst. today, i've had them, matchbox 20, alanis morrissette, and that one song by keith urban on repeat. then this happened. i always love stanford era angst from Dean's pov; there's so much to explore there.
> 
> send me hugs, y'all. <3
> 
> now to work on other updates.


End file.
